Travaris Robinson walked into the old Georgia football team meeting room in the Butts-Mehre building early Tuesday afternoon with a smile on his face indicating he was looking forward to holding court.

It was his first appearance before reporters and TV cameras since his hire in as Georgia football co-defensive coordinator in January. He was introduced by his name, not his nickname.

“Travaris Robinson, I haven’t heard anybody call me that in a long time,” Robinson said.

Robinson, who turns 43 next month, is affectionally known as simply T-Rob.

After a brief introductory statement, Robinson opened the floor: “Questions, what we got?”

Robinson’s voice boomed compared to softer spoken Glenn Schumann, the Bulldogs’ defensive coordinator who preceded him with his own press conference on this day.

Robinson fielded four questions during his 17 minutes in front of the room about his relationship with Will Muschamp, the former Georgia safety and Florida and South Carolina head coach whose move to an analyst role opened up a spot for Robinson to coach safeties and nickelbacks.

Robinson, known widely as T-Rob, was a student assistant and then graduate assistant under then defensive coordinator and secondary coach Will Muschamp for Powers’ first two seasons at Auburn in 2006 and 2007. Robinson worked extensively with nickelbacks.

They are working together at Georgia like they did at Auburn when Robinson was a student assistant and graduate assistant in 2006 and 2007 and Muschamp was defensive coordinator. They worked together from 2011-2020 at Florida, Auburn and South Carolina.

Robinson called Muschamp a “mentor to me and a father figure. Everything I’ve done in my career he assisted me in. When he told me that he was looking into not being here full, full time, but being here a lot of the time, it’s something I wanted to do. He’s a big-time Georgia guy … and he wanted to pass that torch to somebody that can kind of run things like he did.”

Georgia coach Kirby Smart and Muschamp reached out to Robinson when Nick Saban abruptly retired and then was able to keep him when new Alabama coach Kalen DeBoer reportedly made a run to keep him in Tuscaloosa.

Muschamp has made the transition smooth to Georgia even though Smart and Schumann came from Alabama.

“Some of the things that we do here is really different than what we did at Alabama,” Robinson said. “Kirby’s done a really good job, and Coach Shumann, of changing some of the things that we did and making it not as complex. I think our guys are able to play faster because of that.”

Smart said last month that getting a recruiter like Robinson played a large role in wanting him in Athens.

“It's tough. It's hard. It's cutthroat,” Smart said. “You don't have experience in those battles it's hard to win them. I've always recruited against him and had respect for him on the road, the way he carries himself, presents himself.”

Robinson quickly connected with Malaki Starks and asked the All-American safety to join him for 5:30 a.m. runs in the spring.

“I’ve gained a little weight,” the former first-team All SEC defensive back in 2002. “I’ll be the first person to say it."

Starks beat him to the indoor practice facility despite the early morning wakeup call.

They haven’t continued that of late.

“I need to take my butt back out there and start running,” Robinson said.

Robinson was asked to compare Saban and Smart. He said both bring a lot of energy, but the difference is Smart’s ever-present microphone at practice where he offers blunt criticism if needed.

“It’s a little different now when a guy comes running to you and tell you something or you hear it on that microphone and your players hear you talking to you,” he said. “’Hey, T-Rob. Your guy doesn’t know what he’s doing or you don’t know how to coach it.’ He holds everybody accountable.”

Smart isn’t the only one trying to motivate at practice.

Even one of the nation’s top quarterbacks, Carson Beck, isn’t immune.

“I talk a lot of trash to Carson,” Robinson said. “He does a good job of handling it in the right way.”

Like the Alabama SEC championship game, a 27-24 loss that knocked the Bulldogs out of the playoff?

“Nah, I hadn’t done that yet,” he said with a big smile. “I don’t know if I’m able to bring that up.”

Robinson said his message is similar to what he picked up with Muschamp, but his delivery is different.

“I’ve got a little nicer side than he’s got sometimes,” Robinson said.

Starks put it this way in the spring: “Our first meeting, if you closed your eyes, you’d think Muschamp was talking. I was like, I went to a meeting, Did Muschamp give you a script? Ya’ll say the same things. I forgot they’ve been together for a long time.”

His former players gush about what Robinson brings.

“Man, T-Rob is second to none,” former Alabama cornerback Terrion Arnold said at the NFL combine. “I mean a very cerebral, intellectual guy. The guy’s intelligent. He cares.”

Arnold became a first-round pick of the Lions in April

“He pulled me into the room and asked me how great I want to become,” Arnold said. “And from then on, you see the rest is history.”

James Williams, a safety who Robinson coached in 2021 at Miami, said “Coach T-Rob’s great. He kind of brings that juice that I don’t think no other coach can really bring. How he approaches everything.”

Schumann, for his part, said he had a lot of respect for Robinson as a coach and recruiter and was even more sold given one review about him.

“Will spoke incredibly highly of him even before this opportunity came about,” Schumann said. “I trust Will and his opinion with just about everything.”

This article originally appeared on Athens Banner-Herald: Travaris Robinson opens up at first Georgia football press conference